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MARITSSA BONILLA GUERRA: Hey, Panthers,
before completing your scholarship application
you are required to watch this short video
so you know exactly how to fill out your scholarship
application, and some of your questions
are answered before even applying.
So let's get started.
The first section, sections 1 through 4,
which are your personal information,
academic information, financial information, and qualification
questions are straightforward yes or no and multiple choice
sections.
Please make sure you answer these questions accurately
as they will match you to the scholarships you qualify for.
Answering these questions wrong can either disqualify you
or mistakenly qualify you for a scholarship
you don't qualify for.
Students usually don't have any problems with these sections,
however I do want to go over one where
I have received many questions and that
is your financial information.
So there is one question here where students get stuck on
and that is your independent or dependent question.
So you can read this section here
to determine if you're independent or dependent
applicant.
If you are over the age of 24, you
are considered an independent applicant.
If you are under the age of 24, however you live on your own,
you are still considered an independent applicant.
If you are under the age of 24 and you live at home
or dependent of your parents, you
are considered a dependent applicant.
What you select here will determine what questions
you will receive.
If you select independent, you will be asked questions
about yourself and your income.
If you select dependent, you will
be asked questions about your parents and their income
status.
One question in common in both of these outcomes
is your total annual gross household income.
So here you want to make sure you insert
this amount using numbers only.
Do not use dollar signs, commas, or decimals.
Another section I want to talk to you
about is your work experience and extracurricular activities.
Please fill out this section exactly
as you would if you were filling out
an application for employment.
Make sure your dates are accurate.
Also, make sure you include any volunteer
and extracurricular activities.
Community involvement is an important quality
in this section.
If you are involved in any kind of service to the community,
make sure you include it here.
If you are not involved in the committee
or on campus because of work or any responsibilities,
please make sure you include an explanation
of this in your personal statement.
The very bottom of this section, we
have your educational statement and your personal statement.
Let's go over your educational statement section.
Your educational goal statement should be clear and precise
and your current short-term and long-term educational and
career goals.
You can follow this guideline I created just as a suggestion,
however you can freely write it however you would like.
I will paste this guideline at the end of the video
so that you can copy and paste it onto a Word document
and use it as an outline.
So there are four points to the outline I created.
The first one is an introduction.
So you might want to talk about your purpose
at Chaffey College, why you chose
to come to Chaffey College, or what circumstances brought you
here.
The second point would be your major of study Chaffey.
So what degree or certificate you are seeking,
and what inspired you to pursue this degree or certificate?
The third point is a purpose for obtaining this degree
or certificate.
So do you need this degree to transfer to a certain four year
university that you have in mind?
Or if pursuing a certificate, will help you
obtain a specific employment?
And then finally is stating your long-term
educational and career goal.
If receiving an associate's degree,
you might want to explain how this will eventually lead you
to your long-term goal, which could be maybe obtaining
a master's degree or a PhD in a specific area.
Or if pursuing a certificate, if this
will lead to a job advancement.
Finally, as your personal statement,
I want to briefly read this over to point some things out.
So it reads, "this section is your opportunity
to provide further information about yourself that
will assist the committee in selecting you as a recipient.
Examples-- tell your story, share
your financial situation, your challenges and aspirations.
Please keep in mind this section will
have a great impact on whether you are selected
as a scholarship recipient.
Not giving enough detail will affect your score.
Minimum word count is 200."
So let's point out the fact not giving enough detail
will affect your score.
It is important that you elaborate as much as possible
as to all the different challenges
to your financial situation or your aspiration.
Don't just say things straight to the point.
Don't just say, "I need money."
Well, guess what?
Everybody else does.
Why is it that you need money?
What makes you different than other students?
What is going to make the readers want to give you
this scholarship money?
What is going to make them think that you need
it more than other students do?
Always keep this in mind when writing
your personal statement.
You want to elaborate as much as possible
and make sure you fully explain yourself
and every last bit of your financial or personal
situation.
Finally, your personal statement does have a minimum word
count of 200.
We can see, in our system, exactly how much
your word count is.
If you are anywhere under 200, we
will have to take you off of the applicant pool.
Please make sure you have at least 200 word count.
The system itself does tell you what your word count is,
backwards.
However, I strongly recommend that you type out
both statements on a Word document
and then just copy and paste them onto the application.
This will help you see if you have
any spelling or grammatical errors,
and it will help you correct them before even
submitting your application.
Another thing I want to recommend
is that if you're having trouble with completing
your personal or educational statement,
you can always take advantage of the great resources
that Chaffey has to offer and go to one of the three
wonderful writing success centers
and get help from the tutor there.
This is great if you want somebody
to read over your statements or if you want somebody
to suggest edits.
They're really good with helping students out with any writing
assignments, and they also have workshops for filling out
scholarship applications.
So it really is a great resource;
please take advantage of all the great things
Chaffey has to offer.
So that is the last portion of the scholarship application.
If you completed all of the sections,
it should give you a status update
under the title of the tab.
So you see here it says In Progress.
If you were to complete all of the sections,
it would say Completed under these five tabs.
And only until all of these are completed
you would be able to go into the certification
and authorization, read this statement,
electronically sign your application
and include the date, and then this
would be highlighted in yellow and you
would be able to submit your application.
If, for some reason, you are missing one question on any
of these tabs, it would say In Progress as it does here,
and it would not let you submit your application.
So make sure that you are looking at these tabs
before submitting your application making sure
that they all say Completed before you finally
decide to be able to submit your application.
Once you submit your application,
if you qualify for any scholarships that
require additional items or documents,
it would tell you here.
As it reads now, it would say x amount
of items requiring completion.
You would select this tab and complete whatever
it is that they are requesting.
Once you have fully completed all of your pending items,
you will be able to look into the scholarships tab,
see all of the scholarships we have to offer,
and it would give you a status here.
So if you qualified for any of these applications,
it would say Applied.
If you did not qualify for certain scholarships,
it will say Not Qualified.
And it will go on to do this for every single scholarship,
so then you can get a total number
of the amount of scholarships you qualify for.
And that's pretty much it.
That's the end of my video.
If you have any questions, please
feel free to give the foundation office a call.
Anybody in the office should be able to answer
any of your questions in regard to the scholarship application.
Our number to the office is (909) 652-6545.
If you're not able to call during office hours,
you can also send me an email at Maritssa.Bonilla
Guerra@Chaffey.edu.
That is Maritssa, M-A-R-I-T-S-S-A, .Bonilla,
B-O-N-I-L-L-A, Guerra, G-U-E-R-R-A, @Chaffey.edu.
Thank you for watching my video, and good luck
with your scholarship application.
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